Arrests reported in videotaping, taunting at Saddam's execution

Published: Thursday, January 04, 2007

STEVEN R. HURSTASSOCIATED PRESS

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi authorities reported the arrests Wednesday of two guards and an official who supervised Saddam Hussein's hanging and said the guard force was infiltrated by outsiders who taunted the former leader and shot the video showing his body dangling at the end of a rope.

The unauthorized video, which ignited protests by Saddam's fellow Sunni Arabs in various Iraqi cities, threatens to turn the ousted dictator into a martyr. Saddam was shown never bowing his head as he faced death, and asking the hecklers if they were acting in a manly way.

The Bush administration sent conflicting signals Wednesday about the taunting and baiting that accompanied the execution, with the White House declining to join criticism of the procedure and the State Department and U.S. military publicly questioning it.

Saddam

Saddam, who was convicted for the killings of 148 Shiites, was dignified and courteous to his American jailers up to the moment he was handed over to the Iraqis outside the execution chamber, a U.S. military spokesman said.

He "was courteous, as he always had been, to his U.S. military police guards," Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell said. "He spoke very well to our military police, as he always had. And when getting off there at the prison site, he said farewell to his interpreter. He thanked the military police squad ... and the colonel that was on site."

Caldwell said Saddam's demeanor changed "at the prison facility when the Iraqi guards were assuming control of him."

The clandestine footage appeared on Al-Jazeera television and Web sites just hours after Saddam was hanged Saturday.

The tumultuous scenes quickly overshadowed an official execution video, which was mute and showed none of the uproar among those on the floor of the chamber below the gallows.

A key adviser of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, "In the past few hours, the government has arrested the person who videotaped Saddam's execution. He was an official who supervised the execution and now he is under investigation."